Delhi Police recovers 211 bottles of ‘fake defence liquor’

When you buy liquor next time, don’t trust the quality of the bottle blindly bearing the stamp of ‘For Sale to Defence Personnel Only’, as the bootleggers are smuggling illicit liquor with fake labels.

He was smuggling the fake liquor in his Wagon R car. In 2016, Kumar came in contact with Bablu who worked for Rajesh a resident of Sonipat who owned a liquor godown in Sonipat. Bablu used to sell liquor through various agents to bootleggers in Delhi.

In order to earn good revenue, Rajesh used to put fake defence canteen labels on liquor bottles because of higher creditability of liquor from defence canteen.

He then used to take orders from bootleggers from Delhi, and as per the demand they used to put fake defence canteen labels on liquor bottles and latter supply it to Delhi and Haryana through his agents.

“In order to lend credibility to their goods and to earn higher margins, the accused persons used to procure genuine empty bottles of various brands from rag-pickers.

In their godown in Sonipat, the accused used to dilute the original liquor with water and other ingredients to increase its quantity and in turn making it spurious. They would then fill the original branded bottles with the spurious liquor and accordingly used to put fake labels of IMFL on them,” Chinmoy Biswal, DCP (South-East) said.

A senior excise department official said it was alarming as these labels could be used for selling illicit liquor. How could one verify if he sells inferior quality of liquor by pasting these labels (on bottles)?

People can easily be cheated under the impression that the liquor is of good quality as it is for defence personnel,” said the official. Sources said it is common practice to procure costly liquor from outside and serve it in parties in the Capital to evade taxes.

Delhi authorities worry over adulteration of liquor, smuggling from Haryana